Upcoming Events
From music festivals, racing, history, heritage, food and everything in between. Here's your guide.
Kingsport Arts Festival
April 18 @ 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Kingsport Cultural Arts is excited to announce the return of the Kingsport Arts Festival. Now in its third year, this one-day event showcases the talents of our region’s best artists and creatives.
The festival will take place from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on April 18 in the 100 block of Shelby Street and feature the following events and activities:
- Chalk art and large canvas finger painting for kids
- Glassblowing with Ryan Gothrup
- Iron Pour with WNC Sculpture
- Juggling, music and storytelling
- Raku Ceramics Firing with the Clay Gurus
- Tie Dye festival shirts with Engage Kingsport
- Watercolor painting for teens and adults
The one-day festival will also feature more than a dozen local and regional vendors, a gallery crawl and a number of demonstrations by local art groups.
“As in previous years, the Kingsport Arts Festival aims to showcase creativity and engagement, where folks can come down and see these works of art being formed before their very eyes,” said Program Leader Linore Huss. “We believe people will not only come away excited, but also inspired by what they learned and created themselves.”
The Kingsport Arts Festival is a partnership between Kingsport Cultural Arts and Engage Kingsport.
About Kingsport Cultural Arts
Kingsport Cultural Arts connects, coordinates and engages the public with a creative community. We operate the Renaissance Arts Center, the Farmers Market Pavilion, the Kingsport Carousel, the Kingsport Arts Festival, Kingsport Public Art Program and a broad range of support to the area’s arts organizations. KCA works in tandem with Engage Kingsport, Inc., the “Friends of the Cultural Arts” group, a private, volunteer-led 501(c)3 non-profit community organization. For more information, please visit www.artskingsport.org.
About the City of Kingsport
Founded in 1917, the City of Kingsport (pop. 55,400) is located on the Tennessee-Virginia border at the crossroads of I-81 and I-26 near the geographic center of the eastern United States. The city is widely known as a planned community, designed by renowned city planner John Nolen and wrapping around the foot of Bays Mountain – a 3,750-acre park, nature preserve, planetarium and observatory. Kingsport is recognized as an International Safe Community by the National Safety Council, a Healthier Tennessee community, and won the 2009 Harvard Innovations in American Government Award for its higher education initiatives. While many city names are duplicated throughout the U.S., there’s only one Kingsport – a fact that invokes community pride, known locally as the “Kingsport Spirit.” For more information, please visit www.kingsporttn.gov.
